Cast of Characters, but No Mayor, on D.C. Democratic Primary Ticket

WASHINGTON – One of the Democratic candidates for mayor of D.C. is a 79-year-old activist known simply as "Faith."

She is a dancer, a bugler and a songwriter who serenaded listeners on local talk radio Friday morning and didn't seem to know when to stop.

Another candidate is 74-year-old Douglas Moore, a former city council member.

"I have been on the city council. I'm the only business man who has had some experience for 20 years," Moore said.

Moore failed to mention another experience he has had -- being convicted of biting a man.

"He had a dispute. He bit a tow truck operator and spent 30 days in jail," explained Mark Plotkin, a political commentator for WTOP radio.

Altogether, there are four Democrats on the primary ballot.

They may be odd, but the most unusual thing about this election is that the frontrunner isn't on the ballot.

Incumbent Mayor Anthony Williams was disqualified and is now running as a write-in candidate.

It seems there was something fishy about the signatures on his nominating petitions. Among the 10,000 names -- of which the mayor really only needed 2,000 to qualify -- were British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan, clearly not D.C. residents.

The Board of Elections ruled the mayor couldn't have his name on the Democratic ballot. The Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

"All of you know that right now we've been set back, I've committed errors," Williams said at a recent campaign stop.

That's one way to put it, but mayoral candidate Ozzie Thorpe put it another way.

"He must have fallen on his head when he was a kid. He's a skunk," Thorpe said.

Williams is a popular mayor who restored confidence in the city after the notorious tenure of Marion Barry, who was convicted of drug possession after a videotaped government sting operation.

Now, it looks like the new mayor has taken a tumble.

"It's a case of massive ineptitude. It's the gang who couldn't shoot straight," Plotkin said.

Though the race has turned into one of the wackier ones in the nation, Williams is still almost certain to win.

His Democratic opponents aren't taken very seriously by many, and if the Harvard-educated mayor does win through a write-in campaign, he faces no Republican opponent.